Get Apple Music on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows

EDITORS’ NOTES

“I definitely wanted for everyone to know it's not me singing,” Elton John tells Apple Music of the soundtrack to his fantasia biopic Rocketman, starring and masterfully performed by Taron Egerton. “I didn't want lip-synching. Now, my songs aren't easy to sing—I know 'cause loads of musicians have told me. He sounds like me, but he also sounds like Taron. Things like 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me,' 'Take Me to the Pilot,' 'Tiny Dancer' are not easy, and it blew my mind when I heard them.”

Under the supervision of musical director Giles Martin—and with Sir Elton himself choosing to largely stay out of the process—Egerton found the line between impersonation and reinvention. And he's had years of practice, even before his fateful (albeit in gorilla form) rendition of “I'm Still Standing” in 2016's Sing. “When I was 17, I auditioned for drama school,” he tells Apple Music. “The first year I didn't have much luck, but when you audition for drama schools in the UK you're asked to sing a song, and both years I did 'Your Song,' which my mom loves to tell people now.”

Elton John's actual voice is absent from the movie and the soundtrack until the very end—he and Egerton duet on “(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again,” which was written specifically for the project, and the result of some high-profile multitasking. “I had to write a song for the end of the movie—a duet for him and I to sing—and I had to write a song for the end of the new Lion King movie,” John says. “I did them both in the same afternoon in Atlanta, and they both turned out really well.”

EDITORS’ NOTES

“I definitely wanted for everyone to know it's not me singing,” Elton John tells Apple Music of the soundtrack to his fantasia biopic Rocketman, starring and masterfully performed by Taron Egerton. “I didn't want lip-synching. Now, my songs aren't easy to sing—I know 'cause loads of musicians have told me. He sounds like me, but he also sounds like Taron. Things like 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me,' 'Take Me to the Pilot,' 'Tiny Dancer' are not easy, and it blew my mind when I heard them.”

Under the supervision of musical director Giles Martin—and with Sir Elton himself choosing to largely stay out of the process—Egerton found the line between impersonation and reinvention. And he's had years of practice, even before his fateful (albeit in gorilla form) rendition of “I'm Still Standing” in 2016's Sing. “When I was 17, I auditioned for drama school,” he tells Apple Music. “The first year I didn't have much luck, but when you audition for drama schools in the UK you're asked to sing a song, and both years I did 'Your Song,' which my mom loves to tell people now.”

Elton John's actual voice is absent from the movie and the soundtrack until the very end—he and Egerton duet on “(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again,” which was written specifically for the project, and the result of some high-profile multitasking. “I had to write a song for the end of the movie—a duet for him and I to sing—and I had to write a song for the end of the new Lion King movie,” John says. “I did them both in the same afternoon in Atlanta, and they both turned out really well.”